Founded in 2011 by Toronto-born poet and composer Benjamin Hackman, The Holy Gasp is a multi-genre ensemble that strives to entertain fans of theatrical, darkly comical, literary music, with instrumentation and personnel that changes regularly to meet the needs and vision of each new project.
Their first record, The Last Generation of Love (2015), was funded by the Toronto Arts Council, and regarded as “a future cult-classic debut” by The Toronto Star, as “undoubtedly one of the best Canadian albums of the year” by Grayowl Point, and as “one of the best albums to come out of Toronto in 2015” by Toronto Music Reviews.
Left to right: Christopher Weatherstone (woodwinds), James McEleney (bass), Oso (drums), Benjamin Hackman (vocals/percussion), and Sebastian Shinwell (guitar).
In 2017, The Holy Gasp was commissioned by The Toronto Outdoor Picture Show to compose an original film score to the 1925 silent comedy, The Freshman, which was written during Composer’s Residency at The Church of St. Andrew by-the-lake on Toronto Island. The Freshman was conducted Maestro Pratik Gandhi, and premiered as a live accompaniment to the movie on opening night of The Christie Pits Film Festival in June of 2017. It was attended by an audience of 800 and encored later in August of 2017 at the Slapstick by Starlight Festival.
In 2018, The Holy Gasp released The Love Songs of Oedipus Rex, a 27-person concept album about a troubled marriage further burdened by the death of the husband’s father. The album reached #1 on the Earshot Campus Radio Charts in Windsor and Detroit, and was the subject of a CBC Short Doc by director Luke Sargent on the process of turning trauma into art. The album was described by Sacred Exile as “an immediately captivating mix of genres, anchored by a powerful vocal performance… ultimately unlike anything you have heard before,” and to quote Dominionated: “From the most painful and precarious of predicaments, The Love Songs of Oedipus Rex rises as a creative masterpiece.”
The album premiered live in concert at 918 Bathurst in Toronto on October 27 2018, and was funded by the Toronto Arts Council, The Ontario Arts Council, The Canada Council for the Arts, FACTOR, and The SOCAN Foundation.
The 2020 pandemic proved a fruitful year for The Holy Gasp, first with the release of Mmm Urkh But, co-composed with Robert W. Stevenson. This 16-minute piece marked a new foray for The Holy Gasp into music-accompanied storytelling. Composed for bass clarinet and percussion, Mmm Urkh But is the story of a man and woman who attempt to mend their troubled relationship by committing to a life together in which three words alone are permitted to be uttered. Mmm Urkh But premiered via live stream in co-presentation with URGNT Music and Macleans Magazine. In the words of Governor General Award-winning poet, Jacob Scheier: “Mmm Urkh But tells a story both familiar and original in style and content—Beckett-esque and biblical, ironic, absurd, yet genuine and poignant. One might think there is nothing left to say on the subject of communication in romance, or perhaps the impossibility of it, yet Hackman tackles the topic in a fresh and, at times, surprisingly delightful way.”
Later in 2020, during a Composer’s Residency at the Historic Kiever Synagogue in Toronto’s Kensington Market, The Holy Gasp premiered Grief, a sunset-to-sunrise choral performance written for 10 vocalists, 2 pianists, and percussion, and performed in both English and American Sign Language by both deaf and hearing perfomers. Prior to the performance, the public was invited to enter the names of their dead loved ones into The Database of the Dead (where you are still welcome and encouraged to memorialize your loved ones). These names were then inscribed by Rochelle Rubinstein into a series of scrolls from which Hackman read for 9.5 straight hours, while the ensemble around him performed the same ceaseless melody until all 17,000 names had been read, and the sun had come up. Grief was funded by the Toronto Arts Council, the Ontario Arts Council, the Canada Council for the Arts, and the SOCAN Foundation.
In the summer of 2022, The Holy Gasp signed to Roar Records on which they released their third studio album, …And the Lord Hath Taken Away, which dropped April 7th, 2023. The album is available as a special limited edition double vinyl, and everywhere online music is sold and streamed.
If you’d like to keep up with The Holy Gasp, please follow them on social media, or send mail to:
The Holy Gasp
200-21 Nassau St.
Toronto, ON.
M5T 3K6 CANADA
TheHolyGasp@gmail.com